tora ramen

Different flowers are blooming everywhere now that the air is much warmer.

first, the plum flowers started blooming late winter. most of them white and pale pink like the ones on the top of the blog.

then these deep pink flowers started blooming too, but i am not sure what tree this is.

but it really brightens the place up.

took some photos here and there with my handphone on thursday when i was taking a late evening walk at the university near my place.

bell shaped pink flowers which look like they are showering on you

yellow daikon flowers planted at the old folks home nearby

Lunch was at a ramen place we have wanted to try for a long time at kichijoji

usually the queue is long, but it was quite reasonable today, so we happily popped in

the ramen men busy at work

ramen is usually a fight against time

the minute the ramen is cooked, they swing the nets of ramen hard against the floor to rid it of the water it was boiled in, and immediately toss them into the prepared bowls so that while hot, it absorbs the soup/sauce flavours well.

and while they are still chewy and springy, the quickly sweep the bowls off the counter kitchen straight to your table.

i had the regular, with 3 huge pieces of char siew

J had the spicy version

basically, this place serves up their shoyu based ramen with relatively thick noodles, big chunky pieces of pork belly charsiew, and a heap of bean sprouts.

really thick ramen which i quite enjoyed chewing

i am learning more and more to enjoy my noodles chewy and springy, unlike the 5 years plus when i had to struggle regularly with braces caused wobbly teeth and so grew to like soft soggy noodles.

well, overall, satisfied and would visit again.

Dinner tonight was our anticipated oden before it gets too warm at night to enjoy this

with lots of fish cakes & tofu and sweet daikon from the farmers mart

daikon season is over but we were lucky to land our hands on a nice piece last week at the mart.

also, besides it getting warmer, we just have to have another round of this before i get too busy to make this hotpot for another few months or so.

=)